Despite all his outward successes in 1931, a year that closed with performances of the Elegie in Winterthur and Romanshorn by the excellent baritone Hermann Schey, Schoeck was descending into a severe depression. He would become enraged by the slightest criticism—as when the loyal Willi-Schuh dared to suggest in December that a performance he gave of Bach's Kreuzstab Cantata in St. Gallen had been overly “Romantic.” But he readily put the blame on Hilde for almost everything that he felt was out of kilter. Corrodi called by to see them just after Christmas and was told by Othmar about the pregnancy: “It's a terrible fate that this had to happen to [me]…. What am I supposed to do with a child? She'll only use it as a weapon against me once more, just like she uses everything as a weapon, her migraines … everything.” The fundamental reason for Hilde's dissatisfaction, he said, was her delusion (“Wahn”) that he was a hindrance to her artistic career. As far as he was concerned, the main problem was his lack of sexual fulfilment. He had remained faithful to her since their marriage. But Hilde remained completely passive in bed, he told Corrodi, possessing not a whit of erotic fantasy. Even the abyss of despair into which his affair with Mary had cast him seemed now rosy in retrospect.